


I Didn't Switch the Charts

by FandomDancer



Category: Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Genre: Alice Sutton - Freeform, Angst, Conspiracy Theories, F/M, Jerry Fletcher - Freeform, Main Character Alive, New York City, Scene takes place in movie, major decision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 07:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomDancer/pseuds/FandomDancer
Summary: Alice agonizes over her decision to believe Jerry's ramblings and switch the charts to save him. When she shows up at the hospital the next day and sees a body being taken from his room, she realizes that the man who saved her life six months ago...might not be as insane as she thought.





	I Didn't Switch the Charts

              Although Alice had run herself almost to exhaustion, she still barely slept that night, staring at the ceiling, a myriad of scenarios and images marching across her far-too-active imagination. When she closed her eyes, she could hear Jerry’s screams, her name echoing torturously across the tiled floor of the Justice Department. She’d heard him shouting before, but not screaming, not like this. Not as if his whole world had come to an end and she was the one thing left that made sense. She remembered his body in her arms, feverish and covered in sweat, shaking uncontrollably, his piercing blue eyes hazy with delirium as tears poured down his face. It had taken most of her strength not to cry in horror, though she didn’t know if she was more frightened for him or for herself.

              She had tried to maintain decorum when she’d gone to see him at the hospital, and he hadn’t seemed to have calmed down much, thrashing against the bed, trying to yank his handcuffed wrist free, continuously pleading for her understanding, her attention, and her action.

              _Switch the charts._

              It was ridiculous. She rolled over for the fiftieth time that night, but the bed was just too hot. She kicked off the covers and stood up, pacing furiously around her apartment. It was ridiculous. He had probably gotten some drug somewhere, taken too strong of a dose, and his paranoid tendencies had gone through the roof, resulting in panic and delusion. She had known he would probably do that to himself before too long, given the string of theories he spouted every time he came into her office. Anyone that frightened would be set off by even a slight dosage of many things out there.

              Except Jerry didn’t strike her as a junkie. He had enough energy and power without additional assistance. He didn’t exhibit any of the signs she had learned about either, though she didn’t want to be too naïve and discount the possibility. But truth be told, if someone had laid down money on Jerry Fletcher being a drug addict, she would have laid her full paycheck down in defense of him. It was a gut instinct and she had learned to trust those.

              She pulled open her refrigerator and took a swig of cold water right out of the jug. _What are you, an animal_? her father’s jovial voice chuckled in her head. He drank water, milk, juice, you name it, out of the jugs. Her mother had hated it and hated it even more when she started the habit. Eventually, Harold and Alice had just started buying their own jugs of drink. She closed her eyes and took another swallow. _Who is Jerry Fletcher, Dad?_ she thought helplessly. Was he just a cabbie who had saved her from a mugging one night and now had a crush on her?

              Or was he someone that people wanted dead, and that was why he had begged her to switch his chart with the other man’s in the room?

_Save my life, Alice_ , he had pleaded. _Save my life._

              She hadn’t known what to do, and so she had done what her gut had ordered her to.

              But that didn’t mean the guilt had gone away.

~*~

              Alice was exhausted, and the hospital was out of the way to work. She had tried to convince herself to just go into the office, refocus her mind on her cases, and let Jerry walk in like he always did, full of ideas about an attack on this president or that foreign country. But her hands and feet rebelled against her, turning left when she meant to go right, and before long she had pulled up outside the entrance to the hospital. “I am an idiot,” she murmured softly, and stepped on the accelerator, pulling to the other side of the street and planting the car right next to a “No Parking” sign. She eyed the sign for a moment and sighed. “Just in, see he’s alive through the window, out.” Not even enough time for the police to notice her vehicle. She grabbed her purse and swung out, striding across the street and into the hospital.

              The receptionist gave her a look as she came up, but she didn’t stop, moving purposefully towards the criminal wing of the hospital. No one stopped her, thankfully, and she grinned quietly to herself as she remembered her father’s words. _Act like you belong and no one will ask you any questions._ It was surprising how well it worked.

              As she neared the gate separating the wings, however, her heart began to pound. Two orderlies were pushing a stretcher out of Jerry’s room, and when she got close enough, she saw that the stretcher wasn’t empty. It held a body…a body covered by a sheet.

              Horror closed her throat and she lunged forward. _Jerry!? No…oh God, no._ Her hands gripped the fence, the horrific images her brain had conjured up last night beginning to flood her vision. “Can you open this please, ma’am?” She forced the words out and pressed on the door. It didn’t move. “ _Ma’am!?_ ”

              The door buzzed and Alice plunged through, breaking into a run for the stretcher. “What happened!?” she demanded, shouldering past the orderlies. _Jerry? Oh God, please…please not Jerry._

              “Guy came in with a stab wound and died of a heart attack. Go figure,” one of the orderlies said as Alice yanked back the sheet.

              It wasn’t Jerry. The dead eyes looked past her, the face round with a red beard and mustache. The other guy in the room. His chart would say Jerry Fletcher, but it wasn’t Jerry on the stretcher.

              It wasn’t Jerry who was dead.

              Alice felt her stomach turn over and drop to her feet. She shrank backwards, slumping against the wall, her mind desperately trying to wrap around the sentences. _Guy came in with a stab wound and died of a heart attack._

_You gotta switch the charts, ‘cause if you don’t I’ll be dead by morning._

              “Are you Miss Sutton?” A heavyset doctor moved in front of her as the stretcher was wheeled away. Alice swallowed, her throat painfully dry, and fought to form words.

              “Yes.”

              “Well, they want me to bring you downstairs.”

              _What?_ “Who does?” Alice managed to look up despite, feeling like she was fifteen steps behind everyone else. Her brain couldn’t seem to move past the sentence _did I kill a man last night?_

“The FBI, the CIA…you name the initials, they’re down there.”

She was cold now, and could feel a violent trembling in her core. _Don’t show it. Reveal nothing_. She tried to make her voice light. “Any special reason?”

              “All I know is they said to bring you and the body down to the basement and the body's on its way so... come with me.” He gestured and began to walk.

              Alice stayed still. This wasn’t happening. Jerry wasn’t dead. But the body on the stretcher had his chart and now there was a doctor asking for her by name and telling her that a lot of initials wanted her and Jerry’s corpse in the same room for an undisclosed reason. Anxiety clenched Alice’s heart, spreading tension through her body. She knew she had to follow not-Jerry into the basement, get some sort of clue as to what was going on. The cabbie who had saved her life six months ago was turning into quite the mystery and the more she found out, the greater her fear grew.

              There was still a question to be answered, however, and with so many people gathered around the door she couldn’t do it subtly. “Ah, I just need one minute please,” she said, not asking, just stating, leaving no opening for him to give or deny her permission. She turned away and muscled her way into Jerry’s room, fighting all the people coming out, and looking around…

              He was sitting up in bed, a curious look on his face. His eyes almost immediately went to her as soon as she got past the orderlies cleaning up the dead man’s bed, and a smile touched his lips. The soft sweetness of his expression went straight through her fear and doubt and anxiety and wrapped itself warmly around her insides, filling her with the strangest sensation.

              Comfort.

              Relief, too, but mainly comfort, enough so that she exhaled as she walked towards him. He didn’t take his eyes off of her for one moment as she moved to his bed and sat down, and even though her heart was pounding and her head was full of confused questions, she felt soothed by his presence. He was alive. He wasn’t dead.

              But someone in that room _had_ died last night.

              “Thank you,” he said, his voice quiet. A nervous laugh came out on the second word, and he straightened up in the bed.

              “For what?” she asked, knowing how loaded the question was, wondering if she was ready to hear the answer…and realizing she had to. Because a man was dead and Jerry had known it would happen.

              “Well…” Jerry looked around again and lowered his voice even more. “Switching the charts.”

              The words sank like stones into her brain. She turned away from him, reaching down to steady herself on the side of the bed. Her fingers wrapped around the bars supporting the mattress, and her knuckles grew pale from the force of her grip. She focused on nothing, staring straight ahead, and retreated a little into her own mind, saying in a soft but firm voice: “I didn’t switch the charts.”

              _I did not kill a man._

              “Oh, no!” Jerry said quickly. “It’s okay. That guy was, you know, he traded bullets with an old man in a liquor store. He had it comin’.”

              He was forgiving her. He believed she had saved his life, and he was trying to forgive the way in which she had done it. Because if she had switched the charts and a man died, wasn’t it better than he was a killer, an attempted robber, who shot at a defenseless old man? Wasn’t it better that she had rid the world of a cruel creature instead of…falling prey to manipulation by movie-star eyes?

              _Which one did I really do?_

              She struggled to keep her sense of reality. “You expect me to believe that someone came in here last night and gave that guy something that stopped his heart?” _Did I kill a man, Jerry?_ She was asking him now. He was the expert. Everything he was saying so far had truth ringing through it, and while it was too fantastical to be believed, the most outrageous thing of all had happened.

_You gotta switch the charts, ‘cause if you don’t I’ll be dead by morning._

_Guy came in with a stab wound and died of a heart attack._

              “You switched the charts,” Jerry replied, grinning, “you tell me.”

              _Damn_ him! Now, of all times? Now, when she _needed_ him to be _Jerry_ and go off on a paranoid rant about the ways in which ‘people killed people’, _now_ he chose to be coy and playful? She wanted to deck him. With a deep sigh, she turned away and dropped the other bombshell she had been holding. “I've got to go downstairs now. The CIA wants to see your body.”

              Jerry’s eyes widened. It was his turn for an incredulous look, something of a cross between vindication and terror. “Really? Oh…” She could almost see his mind working, watch the smoke come out of his ears. He began to shift and fidget, the familiar bursts of energy making her smile even in the midst of the horror surrounding them. “Well, I won’t, I won’t be here when you get back,” he continued. “But I’ll keep in touch.”

              Alice couldn’t hide a laugh. “You’re handcuffed to the bed, Jerry.” _Who do you think you are, Superman? And_ how adorable was it that he was comforting her still? _I’ll keep in touch._ Like she was worried about him. Like she needed him near her to keep her safe.

              _Is he wrong?_

              She shook that thought away. But the memory of the body on the stretcher, faceless, played back in her mind, and for a moment she saw Jerry there, eyes open, mouth twisted in a cry, the agony of a medically-induced heart attack forever frozen on his handsome features…

              She blinked. He was speaking. “…have to chew through my arm or something. It's better than hospital food.” His eyes met hers and he held her gaze, seriousness taking the little smile from his lips. “Thank you. For saving my life. Thank you.” The sincerity hurt, because it was so real. Because in this moment, he believed she had killed a man to save his life.

It was too much. Just too much. She pushed herself to her feet, the guilt a physical thing in her throat now. “Heart attacks happen,” she exhaled. Was she trying to say something for the cameras in the room? To convince Jerry, or herself? It didn’t matter. She walked across the room and put her hand on the door. The doctor on the other side was still there, looking a little impatient. No doubt he thought she had questioned a witness but was running out of patience. She had to come out before he came in and saw Jerry. Even if he didn’t know the man by face, he would see they knew each other. She couldn’t risk Jerry…or herself…that way.

              She could feel Jerry’s eyes on her as she steeled herself to go further down the rabbit hole. When she had walked into the room, she had felt comfort in his presence, and she paused, turning at the door, unconsciously wanting to steal just another moment of the bravery he made her feel. He was so frightened, so paranoid, so…so possibly _right_.

              Which was the most terrifying thing of all.

              He was smiling at her, and the warmth and strength that blossomed in her chest did more than pour power into her legs. It filled her with a strange desire. He had saved her. She had saved him. She knew his secret and she had to protect him. Because she was in it now.

              Not that he could know that yet. “I didn’t switch the charts,” she repeated one more time, but this time it was more for those listening, and a final attempt to convince her mind that she was going completely mad.

              She left before she heard his answer, but her heart was already telling her she should stop lying.


End file.
